Page 53 - All About History - Issue 29-15

What if…
JAPAN HAD NOT STRUCK PEARL HARBOR?

I don’t know if I can make a reliable judgement on that but empires, the Japanese one would crumble, but I suspect If Japan had not struck
you are correct – the Americans were thirsting to try the Taiwan and Korea would have become de facto puppet states Pearl Harbor, the USA
may have dropped
bomb out in a real situation and the idea that they could – possibly even today. Of course, there would have been no an atomic bomb on
do it as a pre-emptive strike against the Soviet Union is Korean War and no split between the North and the South. Moscow instead
certainly plausible. Japan would not be the Japan that has And modern Taiwan would not be recognised as a rogue
the resentment it has now – as the sole country to have been Chinese province by Beijing.
subjected to atomic war, but I suspect it would probably
have realised that its economy could win them peace and Hypothetically, could Japan have found a way to
influence rather than the use of empire and force. I do believe expand its empire into Southeast Asia without
democracy would have won in the end. attacking Pearl Harbor?
Japan would have been very vulnerable in the rest of
At the time, Japan had also conquered Taiwan and Southeast Asia if it had not conquered the Philippines – and
Korea. Of course, Chiang Kai-shek fled from China to that country was an American protectorate at the time so
establish a modern Taiwan that exists, to this day, in a they had to hit the USA. Burma was also attractive because it
state of uncertainty as a broadly unrecognised ‘nation’ allowed Japan to cut off supplies to the Chinese from the UK.
while Korea was thrust into war. If Pearl Harbor had not But if you take on Burma you are taking on the British and
happened, how would this have changed? that means you needed to take on Malaysia and Singapore as
Taiwan and Korea would eventually have become well. Japan’s strategy had to be all or nothing – they had to
independent but under tight Japanese control. As with all take all of Southeast Asia, except Thailand, who were a close
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